


to call (for hands of above)

by plainlily



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst, Grief/Mourning, Hallucinations, Heavy Angst, M/M, mention of alcoholism, mention of cutting, mentioned drug use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2019-09-01 09:34:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16762537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plainlily/pseuds/plainlily
Summary: it was an accident.aren’t they all.





	to call (for hands of above)

**Author's Note:**

> please heed ALL of the tags/warnings. if you do decide to read this knowing it may trigger you, please be safe and reach out if you need to.  
> title is from [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ik_BQYbbZ5U), though the lyrics are not necessarily too related.  
> i'm sorry.

donghyuck sees mark sometimes. he’s there one second and gone in the next. sometimes donghyuck will even say something to him, or smile at him, before he realizes what’s wrong. before he does a double take, remember that mark _can’t_ be there, and then he isn’t anymore.

mark can’t be there because he’s dead.

but donghyuck still sees him.

he sees him, and speaks to him, and smiles at him.

sometimes, mark smiles back.

_it was an accident._

_aren’t they all._

_it’s feels redundant to say, but he really was so, so young. he was young, and- and good and smiling and_ so _hard-working. he deserved everything. maybe Heaven._

donghyuck still screams a lot. he can’t help it. he does it when he cries, and he wakes up that way, some mornings. he doesn’t know why, he doesn’t know if he’s sad, or angry, or dying. he thinks it might be all three. he doesn’t have a roommate anymore, and his room has been soundproofed.

everyone’s trying to be patient. the others have started working again and they keep giving him more time, but it’s been nearly a year, and that’s... hard. to wrap his mind around. a year without mark? without the boy he loved- _loves_ \- more than anything? the boy who held his hand as they grew up together? as they found the world, saw it, touched it, had their fingers scorched by it every so often?

donghyuck thinks he’s dying.

he doesn’t want it to be a year.

because once it’s a year, it’ll be two. and then three. then four and five and the next thing he knows it’ll have been more years than he even had with mark.

he doesn’t want that.

why can’t it all just stop.

back.

he wants to go back, he’d do _anything_.

_“you’re lying.”_

_“why the_ fuck _would i lie about this,” johnny’s eyes are blazing even as tears flow steadily from them. his hand is clutching his cell phone so hard it’s a wonder it hasn’t crumbled to pieces._

_“i just talked to him, you’re fucking lying!”_

_donghyuck tries to run. johnny catches him, wraps his arms around donghyuck’s entire body and pulls him down to the ground. for a moment donghyuck thinks they’re going to fight, but then johnny, tall, strong, beautiful johnny, is sobbing, falling apart right on top of donghyuck, pushing his shoulder into the ground painfully but it’s nothing compared to sound of his shattered voice crying, “he’s_ gone _, hyuck, he left, h-he tried to hold on but- and now- what are we gonna_ do _, minhyung-ah, oh_ God- _” and then donghyuck can’t hear anything at all. not for days._

he didn’t move out of the dorms. some did; to go home, to get away. from all of the reminders. he probably should have, but he didn’t.

johnny and doyoung didn’t last even three days.

_mark wrote on the grocery list the day he died, messy script that takes up half the page for no reason. a dumb little smiley face in the corner._

_it hangs on the fridge for two more months before one morning, yoonoh tears it down with a curse, rips it to pieces, then cries trying to put it back together right there on the tiled kitchen floor._

_taeil tells him to stop, that it’s useless, to move on, and yoonoh yells at him. sharp, scathing words, because what does taeil know, taeil hasn’t even cried, not once, did he ever care about mark at all?_

_and taeil yells back, because he’s trying so damn hard to be strong for them, because mark always said he thought taeil could be strong through anything, and yoonoh is nothing but weak and ungrateful, for breaking, for lashing out._

_“for grieving, hyung? that makes me weak?”_

_“yes. no. i don’t know.” confused, scared, helpless tears finally make their way down taeil’s cheeks, and after that only sicheng can get them to stop, even just for a few moments._

_all three of them go home the next day._

they’re so broken. donghyuck doesn’t try to convince himself that he’s the only one.

the kids.

God, _the kids_.

_chenle tries, but ends up dropping out of the group completely. they miss him, but even before leaving, he just isn't the same; he loses a fair bit of his brightness after mark, his innocence robbed. they hear from him every couple of weeks, scattered texts and calls. he even sends letters, postmarked from shanghai. his hangul and grammar get worse with each one._

_jisung writes a lot. he was always a bit mopey but he barely speaks now, and donghyuck reads his songbook by accident once and it’s all so, so angry. scary. and donghyuck doesn’t know what to do so he takes the coward’s route and goes to taeyong about it and then jisung has to go to therapy every week, but he’s only the first one._

_the other three members of dream cope, too- except, worse. renjun is found shaking on the bathroom floor about three weeks after mark, a razor blade lying next to him and blood trickling down his arm. they don’t tell taeyong about that one, and it doesn't happen again. only, jeno was the one to confiscate the blade and they find him with it the next week. he takes himself to therapy, almost as if to apologize._

_jaemin is sweeter about his breakdown. he disappears for a whole day, most of a night. he comes back drunk and covered in dirt. he smiles and says he just wanted to hang out with mark for a while. he sleeps for eighteen hours, then packs his bags and goes home._

_he returns a month later, and he's sadder, somehow, but calmer, though he insists on holding hands even more than before. with everyone except for donghyuck because donghyuck only has to refuse once for jaemin to understand._

_“it’s okay, donghyuckie,” jaemin tells him one night when he’s buzzed, again. “mark says he’s waiting for you, too.”_

their hands always did fit together so perfectly.

donghyuck misses it so much, it never stops hurting.

he misses mark.

his mark. his beautiful, perfect, flawed mark.

he misses mark's jokes, even when they fell flat. his laugh, even when it grated. his smile, even when it was awkward. his optimism, even when it waned. the way his relationship with words was a love-hate at best.

the way he laughed, and smiled, and fought with words the most when he was with donghyuck.

his voice.

his hand in donghyuck's.

the way he glowed onstage, the way he put everything he had into everything he did and loved. the way he _loved_ , oh God.

he would do anything to go back, but donghyuck really thinks that maybe mark was too good for the world. that it didn’t deserve him. that he deserved better. everything. hopefully Heaven, because he knows mark believed in that.

he still sees him, though. when he’s tired, or drunk, or high.

he sees mark, and speaks to him, and smiles at him.

sometimes, mark smiles back.

and sometimes it's different. sometimes it's small, and sad, and longing.

like he’s missing donghyuck, too.

like he’s waiting for him, too.


End file.
